Sunday, May 29, 2016

I'm going to just paste the entire article from NHK below, since they disappear so regularly and the links expire.

There was another TEPCO press release a week ago, which I did not repeat here; with the (approximate) headline "Ice Wall Is Proving Effective". Actually, nothing in the article supported that headline; they were reporting that around 80% of measurements showed soil now at 0° C - ignoring all kinds of stuff like - 20% unfrozen is equal to - total failure.

"More measures needed for Fukushima ice wall

"The operator of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is considering conducting additional work to help freeze the ground around the crippled reactors.

"Tokyo Electric Power Company began freezing the soil in late March to build a 1.5-kilometer underground ice wall around the 4 reactors. The utility wants to reduce the amount of groundwater flowing into the reactor buildings, because it becomes contaminated with radioactive substances.

"TEPCO says the ground at multiple locations along the barrier has yet to reach below zero degree Celsius and one checkpoint remain at around 10 degrees.

"It says those areas contain more gravel and that the accumulated groundwater may be hampering the freezing process.

"It is studying additional measures, such as pouring chemical compounds to solidify the ground, and will discuss its ideas with Nuclear Regulation Authority.

"TEPCO had hoped to expand by this month the areas to be frozen but say it will examine the timing carefully, taking into consideration the problem facing the project."

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One specific point: "TEPCO says the ground at multiple locations along the barrier has yet to reach below zero degree Celsius and one checkpoint remain at around 10 degrees."

That would be where water is running fast through gravel, keeping the temp high- inevitable, as I predicted. The more the water is constricted elsewhere; the faster this water will flow. And there are multiple other factors that also still make this pointless.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

I am wondering, do you have any thoughts or ideas about what CAN be done to fix/take care of the radiation problem in Japan? Things that will actually work.

April 30, 2016 at 6:11 PM

The answers are no fun; and scientifically "not established" - which is why they just gave up on Chernobyl and have tried to bury it in concrete; and keep people out of the contaminated areas.

General consensus among those who know is that Fukushima is at least as "dirty" as Chernobyl; it's just that the Japanese government spends most of its disaster funds denying that, so tourists won't disappear. It's really bad.

Here are 3 really good links for you to dig in to- with the caveat that they all have unstated biases, and you need, always, to be reading between the lines. But- here is very good information; like the actual cost of the ice wall, just the construction? Around $330 Million. Oh; and- to run the refrigeration machinery; for the next 200 years, at least- the wall uses enough electricity to power 13,000 Japanese homes. Every day.

Arnie Gundersen - a real, live, certified nuclear power engineer and past nuclear industry executive- who was the only one speaking up and speaking the truth during the primary Fukushima events. He does tend to speak mostly technical answers- really technical. But he also does not speak with a forked tongue. How do I know? He pretty much always agrees with my own analyses from the data. (That's supposed to be a joke; but it's also true.)

Quick bottom line? The stuff in nuclear reactors is just way too dangerous for humans to ever deal with. Do humans make mistakes? The entire nuclear power industry is predicated on the idea that we can operate insanely complex machines - perfectly. Forever. The radioactive stuff inside will get out in time- and it has more time than we do- and then it's unbelievably dangerous. Humans simply do not have ANY way to cope with it. Japan is busy pretending to be busy- because they have no idea what to do. Nor does anyone else. Should have thought of this stuff before building all those reactors? Nah. "Trust us, we can make this work just fine." According to the engineers hired by the guys making all the profits- which are huge for those doing the construction.

My solution? Start shutting the power plants down, as fast as we can (just like Germany) - hopefully before the stuff comes out, via terrorist bombs, computer hacking, or stupidity- and then what can we do with it?

Not a single "repository" in use or planned is vaguely functional or adequate; it has to be "kept secure" - for 10,000 years. Yeah really.

Here's the ONLY place I think we should put it: continental plate subduction trenches. You put the waste into a scrap submarine (for example) - fill the sub half full of radioactives in sealed casks, the other half of the sub filled with lead - guide it into the deepest ocean trench you can find -which is also a subduction trench - and sink it as deep as it's possible to go. A) terrorists can't reach it. B) it's all so heavy, lead and uranium; that if it starts to leak, it's not coming out of the trench anyway, and C) geology will carry it, about 8 centimeters a year, down into the Earth's mantle; below the crust. It won't be coming back to the surface for a billion years or so; if ever. Guaranteed by physics. Even the half-lives of that crud will be expired by then.

Why aren't we doing this? Money. This would actually be incredibly CHEAPER than anything else; but doesn't involve $Billions/year in very reliable income for the companies currently babysitting all the nuclear waste. They love their jobs - put up a fence and watch. And it's SO easy to scare folks with "oh, gosh, no, we should NEVER put it into our sacred OCEAN!! Horrors!"

Not a great solution. But- probably better than anything else. And not my idea- it's been kicked around for decades- and discussion is always quietly squashed.
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Update:

Tripped on this today; the evidence for the "money" connection to bad nuclear waste storage:

Newsweek - an article on "The American Fukushima?" - by which they mean the old Hanford nuclear site in eastern Washington; where plutonium for bombs was produced:

"The 177 underground tanks were never a permanent solution, and the government has hired private contractors to build a plant that will solidify the waste and prepare it for permanent safe storage. The project will cost an astonishing $110 billion, according to estimates, making it what many believe to be the most expensive, and extensive, environmental remediation project in the world. Completion is about five decades away."

Italics mine. Really good profit margins; and zero risk, the taxpayers will pay for any cost overruns, delays, etc. My off the top of my head cost for constructing guidable barges, loading the waste on them, and sinking it in the nearest deep subduction zone - a paltry $10 billon, perhaps. Oh, and it could all be done in maybe 20 years; not 50, for another temporary "solution".

about me-

It's a play on Grandpa, and green, as in environmentally aware, and Pa, as in ... Pa. An actual grandpa twice, and a Pa three times.

68, kids from two marriages, currently with a 12 year old zooming around the house. The house is as advertised, a very small log cabin in the woods. Tiny. It's like living on a yacht; no closet space, which is maybe half of why #1 went away.

I've been living "ultra" green for 40 years. Off the grid always, business too. Electricity from solar; and a little gas backup in winter. Composting toilet, heat with wood. Not vegetarians; hunter/gatherer/gardener. Not opposed to people living in cities.

Followers

Basic Green Practices in the Little House

1) Off the grid. 38 years. Solar electricity2) Limited power- house electricity has 4 golf cart batteries.3) Composting toilet. Outside. (eew, you do that indoors!?)4) No road to house. You gotta walk.5) No running water in house. Water pumped by wind.6) Showers solar heated; outdoors.7) Heat with wood. One stove in house-..8) Cook with wood 8 months, propane in summer9) Most of our fuelwood now is from trees we planted10) No refrigerator. 40 years, now. You don't need one either.11) Big garden.12) Eat locally when possible, not obsessive about it.13) No pesticide use ever, gardens or crops; not even organic (ok, except a little in the outhouse and the greenhouse...)14) Earth sheltered solar greenhouse (aren't they all solar??)15) Shut up about it. Nobody likes preaching.16. These are our choices- yours are yours.

Basic Practices On This Blog-

1) I do not have time to dig out all the references for you- if you doubt something I say here, google it immediately- and don't bug me if I'm off by a couple of degrees.2)"Eat compost and die" type comments will cheerfully be deleted. They won't even tick me off, I just feel pity. Really. So if I were you, I wouldn't bother. (Note to other bloggers- this requirement for basic politeness works- total # of mean comments deleted by me so far ~ 5; spammers deleted ~ 10)3) Long comments on posts are quite welcome; don't worry about it.4) I WILL try to answer questions, but it may take me a while to get to them.

5) I don't do memes. Sorry- fun, I know, but I really don't have the time.

6) I can't do email, either; I'm already drowning in the stuff from my other life; and I can't get into giving personal advice. If you want to contact me, just make a comment with your email address in it; I'll get back to you if I can.